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Review: It's life, but not as we know it

They don’t call them bug-eyed monsters for nothing. The bad guys from science fiction — aliens in human disguise — are given away by their eyes, which glow yellow or pop out on stalks at inopportune moments. Brian Kennedy hasn’t gone quite this far yet, but some of his ocular gyrations suggest that the stalk-popping moment is at hand. He may not be a power-crazed parasite from another galaxy, but just look at his face in close-up. Those eyes don’t simply bulge, they oscillate: they’re trying to tell us something.

The sensitive Belfast crooner’s new vehicle, 1 to Remember with Brian Kennedy (RTE1, Sun), appears to have been thrown together from leftover bits of slightly out-of-date hit shows. Cynics may view it as an effort to resurrect his career from Eurovision hell, but in reality it’s worse than that.

The core concept is Kennedy singing songs that topped the Irish charts. He stresses